


Ghosts and Consequences

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Post-Canon, Recovery, Serious Injuries, based on a Kylux Cantina prompt, kinda dark and grim, though nothing bad is happening in the present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-04-29 23:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14483592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A fill from the Kylux Cantina theme of monuments. Kylo and Hux, years after their defeat, visit the New Republic Planetary Atrocities memorial. Hux has developed a respect for galactic history, and Kylo reflects on their lives post-defeat.Or: The Star Wars, as narrated by Hux and Kylo.





	Ghosts and Consequences

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Призраки и последствия](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15647232) by [FixDestroy_2018](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FixDestroy_2018/pseuds/FixDestroy_2018), [Lenuchka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenuchka/pseuds/Lenuchka)



> From the [Kylux Cantina prompt](http://kyluxcantina.tumblr.com/post/172006580703/a-wall-with-the-names-of-the-dead-carved-into-it) \- "a wall with the names of the dead carved into it." It conjured the image of this memorial for me, but turned out far too long to be a real cantina fill.
> 
> A warning: I realize what Kylo and Hux are doing here is pretty offensive. They're not any more overtly disrespectful than showing up, but I'm also not trying to excuse or redeem them here.
> 
> Hux's injury, while not graphic or gory, is pretty traumatic, and he winds up struggling with breathing-related physical limitations, and Kylo vaguely alludes to depression and a loss of will to live during the recovery period. The memorial also contains a monument to Leia, who has passed (of old age) recently in this fic, in case that's an issue.

Kylo had grown unused to being around this many people.  The press of bodies, voices, and minds in and around him was jarring after ten years of isolation, and he would not have done it, save that it was all that Hux had asked of him since the exile.

He glanced beside him, squeezing Hux’s hand and getting an irritated look in return.  They were wearing the intricate cloaks and veils of Utansei, purple and gold layers of filmy fabrics that obscured the shapes of their bodies and covered their hair and neck.  The thin veil of black over their faces was sheer enough to see that their faces were painted with the white base and gold designs that were common among the temples where Hux and Kylo currently lived.  They were both taller than most of the other humanoid beings, and they stood out in their dress, but not as much as they should have.

They shouldn’t have been here at all.  Their presence was perversely inappropriate.

The memorial itself was a massive u-shaped box canyon outside the New Republic capital of Bantok City, on the planet Jerber.  It hadn’t had a chance to grow and swell to the size of Republic City, even the nascent version that Ben Solo had grown up in.  But the New Republic government had decided that a memorial to planetary destruction was necessary, now that such atrocities were decidedly in the recent past.

The canyon walls were thirty-two meters tall and separated into six columnar sections, each dedicated to those lost on planets and the superweapons that destroyed them, the names of the dead from both sides of the conflict etched in neat rows and columns, covering the smooth black surface of the rock top to bottom.  Six levels of narrow suspended walkways with stairs and lifts ran around the canyon so that all the names could be viewed. Flowers, garlands, cloth, candles, and other trinkets decorated the elevated walks already, and Kylo wondered just how much would accumulate over time, or if it would ever be cleared to make room for more. The wide u-shaped walkway at the base of the canyon was also cluttered with tributes and knots of beings observing various ceremonies. The main walkway curved around a center that was composed of three rows of erran trees, perpetually in bloom with pink, violet, and white blossoms, benches nestled among them.

Along the top of the canyon sat monumental bronze statues of the representatives of each atrocity, at least one for each of the seven memorials.  Each was mounted on a base with the year and place of their death displayed prominently underneath.  Bantok’s binary suns ensured that at least one of the statues always cast a shadow over the canyon floor.

The entrance to the memorial was on the left side of the canyon, the first monument modestly sized. It was dedicated to _Jeda City & Scarif_, the name cut in two-meter tall High Galactic lettering at the base of the rock face.  Atop the monument, towering over the names of all the soldier and civilian dead, was a statue of Director Orson Krennic, hands clasped in front of him, cape billowing dramatically behind.  _0 BBY, Scarif_   

 _Shot by his own weapon,_ Hux murmured quietly into his mind _._

“Oh?” Kylo murmured, turning to Hux.  Hux frowned at him in return, his eyes standing out very green against his gold and white facepaint, even behind the black veil.  Kylo had loved painting it on him, the only part of this outing that had interested him.

_Must you speak aloud?_

“You’re right.  Speaking aloud at a remembrance like this would be  _inappropriate_.”  Ren was annoyed, and wasn’t about to humor Hux any more than he already had.

Hux didn’t respond, looking back silently to the names, and an uncomfortable silence settled between them.  They stood still in front of the Jedha City monument, the crowd surging around them in a steady stream to the entrance to the stairs and lifts.  

Kylo’s other hand made an abortive motion to rub his face before he remembered he couldn’t. They were already here, Hux already had his way. A younger version of himself would have wanted to make this miserable. But he'd lost the taste for misery over the years.

“Krennic was betrayed, then?  Who shot him?”

 _Tarkin did_ , Hux thought with some satisfaction.  _With his own weapon_.

This was a leading statement, and Kylo sighed heavily, rolling his eyes. “His service blaster?  Was there some sort of old man fistfight, and Tarkin stole his weapon and shot him?”

 _Something like that_.  Hux smirked and looked over at him.  _Krennic had gone to the surface of Scarif, and Tarkin took over command of the Death Star and shot the Imperial Research Archive there._

Ren glanced up to the statue again.  “He didn’t really kill everyone on Scarif, did he?  Shouldn’t that be under Tarkin’s section?”

_Tarkin had a more significant role later.  As you know._

Ren huffed, annoyed. He knew at least that much history. And the jab would have been monstrously insensitive, had they been two other people.  “He wasn’t really shot directly with his own weapon then, was he?  He was just there.”

 _No_.  The edge of the thought had an insufferable smugness.  _An account of one of the gunners states that satellites picked up a direct bullseye.  The beam destroyed the tower where Krennic had last reported from before striking the surface_.

Hux’s interest in history had only increased since the defeat.  He did little else aside from read exhaustive first-hand accounts and records from the last seventy years of wars.  Kylo had long ago learned to tune out these annoying diatribes, but he had to admit this one was impressive.

“Do you think that’s true?  Could they really hit that accurately with the Death Star?”  
  
_Yes.  It was aimed again directly at the Royal Palace of Alderaan in Aldera. Another direct hit_.

Kylo’s eyes strayed further down the path.  A line of life-size bronze statues stood in the center of the main walkway, running the entire way around the canyon.  One further down was more eye-catching than the others, but his gaze tracked back to the statues nearby.  In front of the Scarif monument, there were several Kylo did not recognize, and these statues had no names and plaques.

“Why aren’t the heroes identified?” Kylo murmured, nodding to the bronze alien directly in front of them.  
  
_There’s an audio tour we aren’t doing_.

“ _You_  aren’t doing it.  I am, apparently.”  
  
Hux ignored him, continuing his explanation.  _That’s Admiral Raddus.  He was commanding the_ Profundity  _when it was lost above Scarif in the battle_.//

Kylo was again surprised.  He turned to Hux.  “What battle?”

Hux glanced to him briefly, then back to the statue of Raddus.  _That was the battle that started the Galactic Civil War.  Didn’t they teach you basic history in your Republic schools?  That’s something both sides agree on._

Hux pointed.  The lists of names were divided into columns - civilian, Imperial.  There was also a short list of Rebellion names on the Jedha City side, and a longer one on the Scarif side.

Hux pointed again, to more statues on the path.  _The other statues are Saw Gerrera, Captain Cassian Andor, Galen and Jyn Erso._

Saw Gerrera was the first statue in the line, the one that was most visible when visitors entered the canyon.  There were flowers at the statue’s feet, purple cuplike blossoms with yellow centers and long brown stems.  Kylo stared at them while he asked the next question. “Why are the statues down here, and life-size?”

_Isn’t that the spirit of all these rebellions?  That they were just people, no different that the people viewing them now?_

Kylo’s eyes went back up to the monumental, looming presence of Orson Krennic.  “And they’d probably deface smaller, accessible versions of the others.”

Hux made a huffing noise.  _Likely_.

Kylo rather pointedly did not turn around to face the other side of the canyon.  The fabric and veils that made up his elaborate costume were thick, and the ones that trailed around his head blocked his peripheral vision.  He closed his eyes and sent his awareness into the Force, losing himself in the current of emotions - sadness, melancholy, a bittersweet sense of victory.  Hatred.  The hatred was stronger on the other side of the canyon, around the New Republic monuments.

He pulled his consciousness away from the dizzying sensation of the crowd, overwhelmed again by the press of bodies and minds.  But he let Hux set their pace, and after several moments of staying too far back to read the list of names, they moved on to the next monument.  He kept his eyes closed, letting Hux lead him by the hand. When they stopped, he looked again.

He tilted his head up to take in the giant bronze statue of Wilhuff Tarkin, his Imperial uniform impeccable down to the last detail, his expression severe and somewhat judgmental.  Kylo compared it to the expression on Krennic’s face - a slightly arrogant smirk.  Neither was flattering.

At Grand Moff Tarkin’s feet, the inscription read _0 BBY, Death Star_.

This was the second-largest monument in the canyon.  There were four billion names, all listed as civilians.  There was no other side in this conflict.  The monument stretched almost a full kilometer along the canyon wall.

 _Alderaan_  was written large at the bottom, in the same two-meter tall High Galactic etching.

In the walkway at the base of the wall, isolated from the rest of the heroes due to the size of their monument, were three statues.  Queen Breha Organa and Viceroy Bail Organa were together, their arms linked.  Both had been crowned with flowers, and had bouquets from at least three different planets at their feet.

To the right, surrounded by an impenetrable ring of mourners, was his mother’s statue.  

She had died a week ago, and the New Republic Planetary Atrocities Memorial had been rushed to completion in order to give the New Republic’s grief a place to flow.  Her statue was not visible.  She had always been too short to pick out of a crowd.  She had never needed height to command respect, however.  Her statue was surrounded by racks and shelving that bore the weight of countless candles and flowers and all manner of bright trinkets, medals, and tributes.  

The regard others had for her had always been easy enough to see.

He all but drug Hux through the crowd, pushing and making his way to the front of the queues, absorbing curses and abuse about line-cutting with a dismissive wave of his hand.

He stood in front of the statue and looked down.  He hadn’t looked at any of the holos about his mother’s death.  Hux had been the one to tell him, as casually as if there was a thunderstorm coming that night.  Kylo had promptly left their little one-room dwelling after that.  Hux had neither looked up from his holopad nor followed him out into the warm night, for which Kylo had been grateful.

For her statue, they had chosen to depict her at eighteen, in her Alderaanian braids and her senatorial robes, a look of challenge on her face.

Flanking either side was a holoplatform.  One was the speech she had made to recruit Ben Solo’s namesake, playing in a loop.  “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi.  You’re my only hope.”

The other was the speech she had made at the end of the most recent war.  “We fell to nothing and rose again.  Our single spark of hope was never extinguished, and lit the way to victory.”

Kylo dropped to his knees, letting go of Hux’s hand, and pulled out a small pot of Utansei paint he had brought.  The Utansei anointed the feet of the dead, and he did so now, brushing aside a carpet of flowers and painting the elaborate pattern on his mother’s feet over dozens of designs that had already been placed by other mourners. 

With a pinkie, at the knees of her statue, he wrote “May the Force Be With You” in the calligraphic alphabet he’d learned as a Jedi student.  He hadn’t spoken it aloud in over twenty years. It had always been his mother’s traditional parting.

He closed his eyes, sending his awareness outward again.  Their connection had been severed so permanently that he hadn’t felt her die.  He’d always assumed he would.  Even through his rage on Crait, he had felt the spark of his uncle’s life go out, somewhere in the far reaches of the galaxy. Now, of course, he had no other connections. Only Hux.

He stood, looking over at Hux, who was still behind him, managing to keep his feet in the press of the crowd.  He offered Hux the pot of gold paint.

“Do you want to do it?”  
  
Hux gave him a withering look.  _I don’t know how to do what you just did_.

Kylo rolled a shoulder, feigning disinterest, stowing the paint back in his robes.

“She won.”  
  
_She did_.  There was no bitterness in the thought, and Hux was looking around at all the weeping faces, the dozens of mourners on their knees, the racks and racks of tribute groaning under the weight of so much.

“What tribute did you give your father when he died?”  
  
Hux looked startled for a moment, then narrowed his eyes.  _I gave a very moving speech that I was complimented on extensively.  I drained what was left of him into the waste system of the_ Supremacy _.  I was also given a promotion to fill the vacancy he left_.

Kylo was surprised for a moment, a chill coiling in the pit of his stomach.  He wanted to glance across the canyon.  He didn’t.

The majority of the crowd on the left side of the canyon was grouped around the Alderaan monument.  The crowd thinned as the two of them moved away from Leia Organa.  Sweat was beading on his forehead, and Kylo had to resist wiping at it.  He could feel it running down his back, sticking to his neck under all the veils.  The coarse, heavy fabric of his tunic was beginning to stick to his legs.

Focused on moving out of the press of people and away from his mother’s ghost, he failed to notice that he had been dragging Hux.  He stopped, turning to him with alarm.

“Are you okay?  Do you need to-”  
  
_I’m fine,_  Hux insisted, the thought shooting through Kylo’s mind with a pain.  Hux snarled, and was gasping for breath, making a sickly wheezing noise.

Kylo put an arm around his waist to support him, and this was also pushed away.

 _Stop it_ , he insisted.  _I just need to stand for a moment.  I’ll be fine_.

Kylo stared at him earnestly, crossing his arms and gripping his elbows under his sleeves to keep himself occupied.

Hux wasn’t fine, and hadn’t been since the escape.  He didn’t walk much anymore. The kilometer and a half that they’d gone since the transport dropped them off in front of the memorial was the longest he’d walked in years.  They had two and a half more kilometers to go before they could re-board the shuttle, and Hux already looked pained.

This, more than the flagrant disrespect of their presence, was why Kylo hadn’t wanted to come.  But Hux had been fighting Kylo about this for months, and Kylo had relented after his mother’s death.  Annoyingly, Hux had foreseen this, buying their transport tickets while Kylo had stayed out overnight.

After several minutes, Hux’s breath slowed, and he very carefully straightened his posture, squaring his shoulders and brushing at the front of his robes.  He gave Kylo a prim look, his eyes still standing out so green against all his paint.

 _I’m fine.  Continue_.

Kylo reluctantly took Hux’s hand again, and the two of them weaved through the crowd to the Death Star monument.  It held the names of the Rebellion pilots and soldiers lost during the battle of Yavin, along with all 1.5 million Imperials that were on board when it was destroyed.  At the top of the monument was a man in a cape.  Below him, the pedestal read _0 BBY, Death Star_.

Kylo nodded dismissively.  “And who was immortalized with the Death Star?”

 _Wulff Yularen.  Admiral during the Clone Wars.  Head of the ISB.  He also-_  
  
Kylo tuned out the history lesson as his eyes drifted down the names.  His attention caught on a large block, a significant number of the dead accounted for with only ID numbers.  Clones?  Stormtroopers?  Both?

Hux was still droning on, so Kylo took a moment to let his eyes rest fully on the statue of Luke Skywalker that stood at the base of this monument.  He was dressed in the black bodysuit he’d worn in the holos that Kylo had watched from the end of the Galactic Civil War.  He still had both hands.  His lightsaber was drawn.  He looked confused.

There were holos playing on either side.  One was from the medal ceremony they’d held on Yavin, after the battle.  He was smiling.  His father, mother, and Chewbacca were all in it.  The one on the other side was the dedication of the Jedi school.  Ben stood next to him.

Kylo pointed to it, cutting Hux off.  “What is that?”

Hux paused, annoyed, turning to view the holo.  _A famous speech your uncle gave about the importance of the younger generation.  One of the only public appearances he made after the war._

“You know what I mean,” he hissed, turning fully to Hux, his grip on Hux's hand tightening and his expression twisting.  He could see Hux wince under his paint, and he tried to relax.  

 _Ben Solo.  You understand._  Hux’s lips thinned, and he looked back at the holo.  _They still don’t know_ , the edges of the thought were thin, as if Hux was whispering it.

“Why not?”

He shrugged, looking back into Kylo’s eyes.  _I assume you got your wish.  Ben Solo is dead, has been for many years._

“But-”

Hux squeezed his hand back, hard enough to roll his knuckles.  _You shouted it in anyone’s face who would listen for years, Kylo.  You told those of the Resistance you met, again and again and again._

When Kylo's fury did not abate, he tried harder.

_Perhaps it was to spare your mother’s feelings._

At that, Kylo closed his eyes, turning his face away from the holo.  He could still hear it, though.  Luke Skywaker’s speech.

“I still can’t. Even… after everything.”

_You don’t have to. There’s no one left to explain yourself to anymore. No need to perform._

Kylo opened his eyes, shocked at Hux’s casual dismissal of his pain. Not angry, just… surprised. And that lack of anger was surprising too, in its way, though it was true that the old rage had burned itself out long ago.  There was a pissy look on Hux’s face, and he had turned to the left of the Luke Skywalker statue to study the statue of Obi-Wan Kenobi.  They’d chosen his Clone War likeness, which seemed a strange choice for this memorial. He had been far older, passed many unkind years on Tatooine before he’d lost his life on the Death Star.

Hux looked back at him.  _Are you done pouting_?

He was, though it was still irritating to have Hux so casually dismiss his past like that. He drug Hux faster than he should have past the statues of Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Admiral Ackbar.

These statues all bridged the path between this monument and the one for the Second Death Star. He looked up. The Second Death Star was the only one that had two of the monumental statues installed above it.  Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader stood at the top, each with a lightsaber drawn.  Palpatine’s face was obscured by his cloak, just as Darth Vader’s was hidden by his mask.  They were both hunched in battle-ready stances, Palpatine’s saber in his right hand, Vader’s in his left.  They shared a pedestal that read _4 ABY, Second Death Star_.

This list of dead was minimal, the shortest in the canyon, barely big enough to fit under both statues.  Lando Calrissian, Nien Nunb, and Wedge Antilles were crowded on the path in front of this monument, along with two Ewoks whose names Kylo had forgotten. He looked back to Darth Vader, standing by the side of his Master.

Through the worst of his training, he had remembered the end of his grandfather’s story and had harbored a secret, shameful hope that whatever revelation his uncle had shared with his grandfather would also save him, were they forced to confront each other. But when the time came, Luke hadn’t wasted his time.  Kylo had thought he would try to save his soul.  He hadn’t.  He’d sacrificed his life to let the Resistance get away.  Kylo had been beside himself, lost to rage after that.  It had been Hux that had drug the corpse of the First Order down the path of Galactic Domination, and who had propped up Kylo in public until they both realized that Snoke was no longer there to turn them against each other.

For all the good their brief alliance had done.

Wordlessly, Kylo turned from Darth Vader.  Hux said nothing, leading the way down the path.

The next monument was the largest in the canyon, taking up two kilometers of the available space.  Hux slowed, then began gasping for air as they walked along the length of it.  Kylo drug him to a nearby bench, not asking permission this time.  Hux’s breathing was so terrible that he was wracked with pain, suffocating slowly, not able to protest Kylo’s ministrations.

The bad times came back, and Kylo’s hands shook as he unwrapped the scarf from Hux’s neck and drug out one of the breathing units, hooking it to the tech that had collared him since their escape.  He turned on the oxygen, but even still, Hux’s breathing did not normalize.  They sat for fifteen minutes, and the gasping grew less tortured, but Hux could not quite catch his breath.

When Hux removed the oxygen canister with shaking hands, Kylo could feel him, cold beneath the layers of veils and robes where he was holding his shoulders steady.

“Can you continue?  Do you need me to carry you?”

 _It’s humiliating_ , Hux insisted, tucking the canister back in his robes.  They only had four.  He hadn’t needed all four since his initial recovery, those terrible first months on Utansei where Kylo thought Hux would suffocate in open air.

“It doesn’t have to be humiliating,” Kylo murmured, low, so only Hux could hear it.  “You can climb on my back.”

_We already stand out. Do you really want to draw attention like that?_

Kylo glanced nervously ahead of them.  Standing out didn’t trouble him, he knew there was no chance of their identities being discovered.  Still, Hux had a point. It would bode ill to make a spectacle of themselves in front of these last two monuments.

 _Let’s walk to the statue, and I’ll rest there_.

There was no arguing with Hux about his health, so they stood and made their slow, shuffling way past statues of Mon Mothma and two other Senators who formed the New Republic, then sat down in another bench.  Hux was still breathing heavily, but no longer gasping.

They both looked to the top of the Hosnian monument. In the center stood Hux, captured as he looked when he gave his speech.  His greatcoat was billowing behind him, and his face was captured in a fanatical snarl.  His hair was covered by his command cap.

Below it, his pedestal said _36 ABY, Jerber_

The remains of the First Order fleet had gone down on this planet, though their hulls did not stand forever buried on the surface as the Imperial Destroyers on Jakku did.  The New Republic had made short work of them, disposing of all evidence of the battles in order to turn the site of the victory into the center of the new government.

Kylo and Hux had escaped, but barely.  Hux had been so sure his plan would work, the remains of the Resistance chased to some nowhere planet in the Mid-Rim.  But it had been a trap, and there had been a force secreted here that had gone unreported, amassed from several sympathetic planets. It was the combined forces of everyone who the First Order had made an enemy of. They’d stood no chance.  They’d been badly outnumbered, and the _Finalizer_  had gone down.

Kylo had been in his TIE when it happened. He’d seen it, and knew the First Order was lost. He’d made an impossible landing within the dead hulk as it began to enter the gravity well, through the single functioning shuttle bay open to space.

He’d found Hux in one of the endless halls, following the sense of him through the Force.  Hux was a survivor and not one to go down with his ship, so Kylo knew something had happened when Hux failed to comm him about an escape. His life hadn’t been extinguished in the Force, and Kylo had followed that slim hope through the halls and empty transports full of wounded and dead, past airlocks that slammed behind him. 

He found Hux draped across a console at the bridge escape pods. Someone had obviously shot him as he fled the ship.  Of course they had.  He’d been shot in the throat and the right side of his chest.  He was unconscious, but not bleeding as much as he should have been. The shots had missed vital points.  He was alive, but wouldn’t be for long.

Kylo got him away, he’d never remember how.  He’d somehow had the foresight to toss Hux’s ID tags into a corner and remove his own tracker.   The Republic had included them in the counts of the dead.  Kylo had checked later.

They’d left the Star Destroyer in an escape pod, landing in relative safety on the surface of Jerber. In the confusion of battle, and with Hux badly wounded, Kylo had stolen an old Republic starfighter and fled to Utansei.  Kylo had chosen it as a refuge if the worst happened.  Kylo hadn’t spared another thought to the fate of the First Order that day, and Hux didn’t wake up to ask him.

The Utansei were a culture that despised tech, though they had limited medical resources. Their medical tech was good enough to save Hux’s life, though not advanced enough to help him afterwards.  They could not reconstruct Hux’s larynx, nor could they do much about his windpipe and esophagus.  They installed artificial breathing and feeding tubes, but had to remove his right lung.  

_Did you know, the seven men they immortalized at the top of the canyon are the only ones who are unaccounted for in the monument itself?  Our names were purposely omitted._

Hux included himself among them. Kylo was uncomfortable with the distinction. “It’s disrespectful that they get such huge statues.  They’re the first thing you can see at a distance.  It’s like it’s immortalizing them more than the little statues at the bottom, and all the names.”

_It’s infamy.  The same way that the heroes stand among the crowd as regular people. It’s a reminder, I suppose, that someone also made the decision to end all these lives._

“Snoke did.”

_Let’s not pretend we weren’t complicit.  Besides-_

Hux’s thought was interrupted by a silent, wheezing cough, followed by more heavy breathing. This time, Hux did his own oxygen.

Hux’s left lung hadn’t take well to working Hux’s entire body.  He’d laid in a near coma for weeks, suffocating, his skin pale, his lips blue, before his body had finally adjusted.  Afterward, any physical activity had affected him badly.  It had taken the two of them nearly a year to come to terms with the fact that Hux was all but bedridden for the rest of his life, barring a trip to another planet for an artificial lung.

Which they couldn’t do.  As soon as Hux’s blood hit they system, he’d be identified and executed.  They couldn’t show their faces off Utansei ever again.  Except, of course, for this - sitting at the foot of a statue that marked Hux as one of the most evil beings in the galaxy, one whose name was anathema. Not only was it in horrifically bad taste, it was also just a stupid idea. But they’d been over that.

After his breathing leveled off, Hux’s thoughts resumed. _Snoke. Either many didn’t know of him, or he’s been purposely omitted. He’s not included with the Republic history of the First Order. He’s been forgotten._

The cold coiled in Kylo’s stomach again, followed by a full-body shudder. He put his arm around Hux’s shoulders as they heaved along with his breathing, stilling as his breath eventually evened out.

When Hux stilled, he spoke again. “Really? They just… don’t mention him.” His voice shook slightly on the word, and he didn’t look at Hux as he said it.

 _Good riddance_ , Hux offered, disconnecting the empty oxygen canister and stowing it.

They sat for a while longer, in front of the monstrous list of the billions of people that Hux had indirectly murdered.

Hux could no longer speak directly to anyone but Kylo. Immediately after his recovery, he had used archived footage of thousands of speeches he’d given to the First Order to create a text-to-speech protocol using his real voice. But the tech-shy Utansei hadn’t care for the program. Their culture did include a sacred nonverbal language that had been taught at a nearby temple, but Hux had been unable to walk there and had refused to be carried by Kylo.

Hux had not taken to the forced retirement well, lapsing into sullen silences and refusing to stay in the one-room house. This had hurt Kylo deeply, as he had been proud of choosing it for them - it was remote, at the edge of a chilly, rainy forest and near a large temple. It was away from crowds, technology, and anyone who would recognize them. Hux had hated it, hated the isolation and the sense of purposelessness, and had frequently stumbled off into the woods until he collapsed, gasping for air. Kylo had always sensed his distress and brought him back to the house. Hux hadn’t been talking to him then, though his intentions had been clear enough to Kylo. Kylo pretended otherwise, feigning the usual anger and annoyance at Hux, going over the same complaints he'd made about most First Order tasks, hoping normalcy would carry them through.

When he could, Kylo hunted in the woods, and traded with the temple for everything else they needed for their house. The temple loved him - the devout claimed they’d never eaten so well in their lives. They were free with cloth, dishes, spices, blankets, seeds for their own vegetables, charges for their generator, and anything else Kylo had asked for.

Hux’s meals needed to be prepared using special equipment. Kylo did it at first, Hux too sick and desolate to manage himself. Kylo spent months trying to help Hux recover, watching him suffocate to death and lose the will to live. Ren had once claimed that Hux’s only real skill was giving speeches to the Order, and the accusation had haunted him on Utansei, keeping him up at night along with Hux’s labored breathing. Hux never asked what had happened during that last battle, and the two of them never spoke of the Order.

Hux had been paging listlessly through the holonews one day while Kylo was preparing their meals when he found the information about the proposed Atrocity Memorial. Hux had been intrigued by the balance of it - that the Republic had chosen to memorialize the planet-wide destruction, but also those who had been on the weapons themselves.

He had discussed it with Kylo that night, the longest and easiest conversation they’d had since arriving on Utansei. The next day, Hux had started reading first-hand accounts of the Death Star staff, remarking that the Death Star had been far different from Starkiller. Kylo had stayed home, feigning interest in his own holopad, but mostly enjoying Hux’s voice in his thoughts once again.

From there, Hux had sifted through massive amounts of data, slowly gathering other first hand accounts and lists of names. Hux became an anonymous researcher for the memorial. He had provided them the name of all the First Order personnel that had died on Starkiller, something the committee had thought lost. Hux had provided narrative information that was part of the audio tour that most of the beings were listening to. He’d even dug deep into old Imperial files, searching for census data that contained the names of every family lost on Alderaan.

The project had given him much-needed purpose. He had begun moving around, taking small rounds of exercise. He prepared their meals while Kylo was out and kept their little house clean. Kylo had been thrilled when he began returning home to find Hux reading outdoors. They had even begun sharing a bed again, though they rarely did more than hold each other through the night. They both had slept better after that. Hux never recovered a great deal of physicality, but he had been himself more than ever.

But even though it had given Hux a purpose that had literally saved his life, Kylo still hadn’t thought it was a good idea to go to the opening, arguing that Hux would push himself too far with the walk. And their presence was monstrously offensive. It had been Hux’s idea to go as Utansei devout.

As the two of them sat before the Hosnian monument, on a bench under the flowering erran trees with Hux’s statue casting a shadow over them, Kylo turned to Hux. “Is it what you thought it would be?”

Hux seemed to consider this, staring up at his own likeness topping the names of fifteen billion dead. They were written tiny, only legible when one was close to the wall. _It is what it is._

Kylo had gone to considerable trouble to make this happen, and wasn’t satisfied with Hux to brushing his thoughts off like that. He leaned in and whispered close to Hux’s ear. “And what are you feeling, sitting in the middle of all this, Starkiller?”

Hux turned to look into his face, his green eyes piercing Kylo’s, reading him the way that only Hux could. _Inadequate_.

Kylo had once told the scavenger to let the past die, kill it if you have to. He used to be much angrier. There was no killing this thing that he and Hux and so many others had done. It would live forever.

There weren’t words for any of it, Kylo knew. They regretted much, they would change everything. They could do nothing. They didn’t deserve their lives, though the empty gesture of their execution would have resulted in just as many dead and the names Hux had found for this memorial remaining anonymous. This memorial was one of the most monumental in the galaxy. There were few like it. Kylo could think of only the Clone memorial on Mandalore, made privately and, somewhat amazingly, right under the Emperor’s nose.

After a moment, Hux stood, and they made their slow way down the second half of the Hosnian monument. The names of all five planets ran along the bottom, written large. Cardota, Courtsilius, Hosnian, Hosnian Prime, Raysho.

The hero statues were fewer here. The war hadn’t continued much longer after this. Kylo and Hux made their way past a bronze statue of a slender woman, eccentrically dressed, and three empty spots. These heroes weren’t dead, though Kylo knew what would go here once they were.

He supposed, in that way, it was uncanny to see Hux’s likeness above them, when he was meant to be dead.

Hux went slower, and had more trouble breathing. They sat again, still far from the exit. Kylo wordlessly handed Hux the third oxygen container, and they waited for fifteen minutes while Hux tried to breathe again. He couldn’t do it.

Hux waved away Kylo’s concern, annoyed, though Kylo began to panic. They could not get medical help here if Hux collapsed. Kylo would carry him the rest of the way, insisted on it. Hux couldn’t ride on his back, though - it would cover the collar he wore that helped him breathe and eat. So they had to settle for Kylo’s arms under Hux’s shoulders and knees, one of Hux’s arms around Kylo’s neck.

Kylo had grown older and less fit than he had been in the Order, though Hux weighed almost nothing. It was easy to carry him in his arms, to walk fast through the canyon, trying to leave. He redirected the concern of a handful of passerbys that wanted to call for help, Hux wheezing audibly through his breathing apparatus as Kylo all but ran for the exit. He would give Hux the last oxygen canister when they were aboard the transport. Preferably on the shuttle home. Though perhaps they could find a place to refill them here without anyone checking their backgrounds, maybe at the spaceport. Kylo could probably Force-direct any questions away.

Kylo sped past the rest of the Hosnian monument, but couldn’t bear to walk past the final monument without stopping.

 _Give me a moment, Kylo. You’ll never let me come back, and I want to see this_.

It was true. They likely would never go anywhere again. Hux would never see beyond their cottage after this, and there would be no reason to ever leave again. Kylo hoped Hux would survive a long time with his new research projects, but his health was simply poor. And without Hux, Kylo would never see beyond the forest on Utansei, either.

The last statue on the ground level of the walk was in front of the smallest monument. There had been three hundred thousand souls lost when Starkiller imploded. More had died when the Resistance had jumped through three Star Destroyers and the _Supremacy_  the next day. But the rest of the wars were not within the scope of this project. Only the three superweapons, and the damage they did, were memorialized here. Lest the galaxy forget, and create another.

All three had been brought down with practically nothing. Perhaps that was mentioned in the history tour he was skipping.

His own likeness stood above this monument, his shadow falling across the valley along with Hux's. His date of death was also the same as Hux’s. He was wearing his cowl and mask, which he’d begun to do again after he killed Snoke. Despite Hux’s assurances, he’d never grown less self-conscious about the scar across his face, currently covered with makeup. He had been immortalized in a battle stance, his lightsaber with the crossguard lit and out at his side. He looked more dangerous than any of the others atop the monuments.

Hux’s statue stood isolated atop the Hosnian monument, far away from the others, though it was some comfort to him that his own likeness would be next to Hux for eternity.

At the foot of the Starkiller monument, the hero keeping them company was Han Solo, whose life had been lost on the planet. The likeness was from when he was young, a cocky smile on his face, a hand in his hair. He wondered if Leia had chosen it.

Kylo set Hux down on a bench, then walked back over to the Han Solo statue. He once again removed the pot of gold paint from his robes, coating his palm in it. He laid it against his father’s chest, just where he’d stabbed him after coaxing him close.

He lifted his palm away, studying the gold pattern of his fingerprints and the folds of skin on his hand in gold against his father’s bronze statue. Then, holding his palm just over it, he used the Force to sear it into the bronze. They would need to replace the statue to remove it, and he didn’t think they would. Most that would understand the significance were dead. Hux knew. The scavenger and the Stormtrooper knew. Would they recognize it if they saw it? Would they know he lived still?

Well. Perhaps they would find him. Kylo didn’t think so. But he deserved whatever came to him, he supposed.

He touched the cold bronze of his father’s face the same way his father had touched his as he fell. Then he straightened, turning his back on Starkiller and everything else in this canyon, retrieving Hux, who had grown so cold while trying to breathe. The two of them left together.


End file.
